Fred
by Beloved-Stranger
Summary: Jack swore again. 'I like dogs,' he told his rapidly eroding resolve. 'And I don't have time for this. I'm going to be late' Then the kitten blinked, mewed at him, and he was lost.
1. Is That a Kitten in Your Pocket?

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing, except, perhaps, the small grey cat.

**AN:** Reasons? Jack needed a pet. And I've known kittens he could love.

* * *

"_The smallest feline is a masterpiece."_

_- Leonardo da Vinci -_

* * *

Jack had never considered himself a cat person, and so it was no wonder that he was completely unprepared for Fred.

Their tail – so sorry, _tale_ begins something like this…

* * *

T'was a dark and stormy morning, and along a slightly woodsy, but otherwise non-descript Colorado Springs road, a tabby was leading the smallest of her brood. This kitten was one she simply could not keep. There wasn't enough meat and milk to go round, and so the tiniest would have to take its chances with the two-leggers.

Finally stopping before one house, near the end of the street, the tabby picked up her charge, hopped up the veranda steps and sat before the front door. She set down the runt, licked its sodden fur as smooth as she could, and walked away.

Shivering, infant-blue eyes wide, the kitten watched her go. After a few minutes, when she did not return, it began to call for her. Minutes after that, the shivering became more violent, and the kitten simply did not have the energy to vocalize.

At that moment, the front door swung open.

"Ah crap."

* * *

There was a kitten on his doormat.

"Shoo," said Jack, who didn't have time for this, or much of anything really.

The kitten looked back at him. Its eyes were deep blue, and it had that cross-eyed, faintly ridiculous look all infant felines seem to have. It was also very, very wet. Grey fur that should have given the impression of cuteness and…furball-ness, instead lay flat and currently only served to make it appear pathetic.

Jack swore again. 'I like dogs,' he told his rapidly eroding resolve. 'And I don't have time for this. I'm going to be late!'

Then the kitten blinked, mewed at him, and he was lost.

'God help me,' he thought, scooping up the raggedy bundle of teeny-tiny cat and beginning the hunt for a small box and scrap towels.

To the kitten he muttered, "Just so you know, this is temporary. I still want a dog."

"Mew," squeaked the kitten, burrowing gratefully against his shirt and leaving a wet patch on his front pocket.

* * *

The ride to work was amusing at least. The kitten stood swaying in its box on the front passenger seat, forepaws braced on one side, facing into the nearest A/C vent and the stream of hot air blowing forthwith. It was beginning to dry out now, turning steadily fuzzy from the face downward, so that for a few minutes there, it looked like a tiny lion with a ridiculous puffball mane and soggy body.

Jack still had no idea what he was going to do with it.

He had been late for work when he'd opened the door this morning, only to be faced with the Puddle 'o Pathetic here. There had been no time to do anything else but bring the poor beggar with him. He knew he wouldn't be able to leave it in the car for the day either. Which meant the kit was well and truly coming to work with him today.

All of a sudden, Jack's inner demon-child made an appearance and gave him a wonderful idea.

Oh, this was going to be fun…

* * *

The first victim was the SF at the front desk that morning.

"Morning Colonel," he said.

"Morning Airman," Jack responded, signing the entry sheet and heading for the elevator.

As he went past, the SF twitched. He could have sworn he'd heard…but that was stupid.

There was no way there could be a cat in here.

* * *

Victim number two was the fairer half of Jack's best beloved Geek Twins.

"Carter," he said, sauntering on into her lab. "Isn't too early in the morning to be…dissecting innocent machines?"

"Never, sir," she answered breezily. She looked up at him and unleashed one of those grins that always seemed to lead to motorcycles and/or explosions. "After all, a mad scientist's work –"

"Mew."

Carter blinked. "Sir, did you…?"

Jack raised his eyebrows at her, affecting an innocent, questioning expression. "Hmm?"

"Um, nothing, sir." She smiled again and bent her head back to the desiccated whatever-it-was. "Anyway, I didn't eat before I got in, and if I don't have something Janet may very well skewer me. Want to grab something in –?"

"Mew."

Jack watched in delight as she straightened, blue eyes narrowed, and very carefully set down her screwdriver. "There it is again. Sir, I could have sworn I heard…" She trailed off, looking uncertain.

"Heard what, Carter?" he asked, all nonchalance and innocence.

She gave him a suspicious look for his trouble. "A cat, sir," she told him, eyes narrowing again. "I thought I heard a cat."

Jack hummed and rocked a bit on his heels. "Well, that's weird. You didn't bring Schrödinger in did you?"

"No, sir. Anyway, he mostly lives with my neighbours now. They're the ones who feed him when I'm on base."

"Shoulda gotten one of those auto-feeder things," Jack told her nodding sagely.

Another smile. This one was the humour-the-wacky-CO smile. "I'll take that under advisement, Colonel."

"Mew." Jack's pocket wriggled.

Carter's baby blues snapped onto him like laser-sights. The kitten emerged blinking from his shirt pocket. Jack grinned like a loon.

Then Carter began grinning, too.

"Colonel," she said, affecting a smirk. "Is that a kitten in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?"

Jack laughed 'til he could barely breathe.

Fifteen minutes, an explanation and much fussing over a certain hairball later, she asked, "So, who's Victim Number Three?"

* * *

Jack walked in and Daniel sneezed. There was a pause as they both stood blinking in surprise.

"Uh, bless you," Jack said.

Daniel made a truly horrific snorting noise and muttered thickly, "thanks."

Jack frowned. "Danny, you ok?"

The archeologist coughed, gagged and finally managed, "allergies."

"Ooo-kay."

"Mew."

Daniel's head snapped up.

"What was that?" he asked. Or rather, it came out, "Wad was dad?"

"What was what?" said Jack.

"Mew."

Jack's pocket shifted in an ominous and furry fashion.

Daniel's eyes narrowed.

"Jack," he bit out. "Pocket."

"Hmm?" Jack enquired. Then, looking down at the offending patch of fabric. "Oh!"

He lifted out the kitten and held it in one palm.

"Wow," he said cheerfully to the archaeologist. "However did _that_ get in there?"

* * *

The briefing had been going beautifully, wonderfully, _spectacularly_ to plan, other than the fact that Daniel kept pausing in his spiel to glower at him or sneeze, and Teal'c was regarding him with a stern but perplexed raised eyebrow. Hammond, bizarrely, was serenely oblivious to it all.

Carter kept on shooting smug little half-smiles that tied pleasant knots in his stomach, but when didn't they?

Things were coming to a close, and Hammond stood, gathering his papers and…

"Oh, and Colonel?"

Jack looked up. "Sir?"

"Do something about the kitten in your pocket, will you?"

And with that he swept from the room in all his portly glory, disappearing into his office and closing both door and blinds.

There was a rather abstracted pause.

Then.

"O'Neill, is this some custom of your people's that I have not yet been introduced to?"

"Wha…?"

Jack blinked at Teal'c, who looked steadily back. Then the kitten stuck its head out of Jack's pocket and peered myopically at both of them.

"Is it customary," the Jaffa clarified, "for members of your military to carry small felines concealed in their clothing? Should I not also acquire a feline to carry with me?"

Jack stared. Daniel snorted. Carter giggled.

Teal'c's left eyebrow went up.

The room exploded with howls of laughter, badly startling the technicians down in the control room.

Davis looked upwards, perplexed. "What the hell…?"

Harriman, clearly unfazed, said with a shrug, "SG-1."

* * *

**AN2:** So, thoughts, comments? Exploding bags of crap?

* * *


	2. The Naming of a Conundrum

**AN:** So inspiration called. Said she wants her cat back. I said, Sure, I'll write another long overdue chapter for my Jack-gets-a-cat fic...but only if you give me something to hide behind when they start throughing tomatoes. Inspiration said, Dude, just give me the damn cat.

* * *

**Fred2**

"_The naming of cats is a difficult matter_

_It isn't just one of your holiday games._

_You may think at first I'm mad as a hatter,_

_When I tell you a cat must have three different names..."_

_-T.S. Eliot-_

"So you're keeping it?"

Lesser men had fallen face down and begging for mercy when given that look by one Samantha Carter. Many of them weren't very sensible men, to be sure, and Jack felt he feel into that category at least a little. But he knew Sam Carter, and he knew that look, and more importantly he knew when he was beaten.

"Uh, yes?"

Carter smiled sunnily at him. "Good."

He was out of the woods.

"Now you just need to pick a name."

Or not.

Jack was currently settled on one of the wheelie chairs beside the Major's secondary computer terminal with his booted feet up on the corner of the desk, thus rendering him out of the way and still able to comfortably talk to her.

The kitten was curled in an almost spherical bundle on his chest, now completely dry and apparently exhausted from all the attention. The female personal had gotten wind of Colonel O'Neill's new acquisition and been hunting him down all day, if only to get a glimpse of said fluffball. Jack hadn't heard so much cooing in his entire life.

"A name?" he said stupidly.

"Yeah." She prodded irritably at a tangle of wires on her workbench, and Jack shifted warily. "Got anything in mind?"

"Well…"

He peered down at the kitten. It didn't appear to be anything special. Grey fur with the tiniest hint of tabby striping over the spine, but Carter had mentioned that could change as it grew. There were patches of solid white on its mouth, chest and paws, as well as the whiskers sprouting from muzzle and eyebrows. These twitched every so often as the kit dreamed.

Jack tilted his head a little, sighed and said, "I'm thinkin' Fred."

Carter stared at him. "Fred?" she said, faintly incredulous.

Jack gave her a slightly smarmy smile. "Got a problem with that, Major?"

She went back to her keyboard. "Not in the slightest, sir," she told him loftily.

Jack grinned. "So, I figure, I'm gonna be needing to take this one to a vet at some point…"

"Why not today?"

"…huh?"

"We've got a vet on base, sir. You know, Doctor Marsh?"

He did, he realized with surprise. She ate lunch with Janet and Daniel occasionally.

"No wonder we never see her in the infirmary…" he murmured. Carter gave him the patented 'you-doofus' smile.

"So, shall we go and see if she's free?"

"You couldn't call? We put those handy dandy phones in for a reason…"

She shrugged. "I'd like the walk."

Jack picked up Fred and swung to his feet.

"Lead on, McDuff."

---

Doctor Marsh was one of the few civilian personal on the base. Jack didn't know much about her apart from the obvious; British, smiley, great hair, liked pencil skirts, caused some of the younger Airmen to bounce painfully off doorframes or trip over their own perfectly tied bootlaces.

Jack mostly appreciated her for the comic relief factor and the excuse it gave him to tease Daniel about finally meeting a pretty woman who so far hadn't attempted to kill him or take over the known universe. Daniel would bluster and blush and say, "It's not like that, Ashleigh's just a friend –"

"Oh, _Ashleigh_, is it?" Followed by the requisite eyebrow waggle…

However, Jack was now faced with a newer, more functional side of Doctor Marsh. He looked on while Fred was poked and prodded and measured and inevitably fussed over, until finally –

"Congratulations, Colonel," Marsh announced cheerfully, "it's a girl."

Jack blinked. "Whut?"

"You're kitten. It's female."

"…Female?"

"Yes." Marsh held the fur-ball out to him, pale belly-side up. "Look," she said, "she's developed enough that you can see –"

"That's okay," Jack said, a little over loudly. "I'll take your word for it."

Marsh smiled. "She's such a sweetie, so even-tempered! What are you going to call her?"

Beside him, Carter giggled. Jack shot her a glower.

"Fred."

Marsh stared at him, lovely hair swinging about her shoulders.

"…Fred," she said hesitantly. The vet looked at Carter, perhaps to see if he was joking, then looked at Jack.

Jack looked stonily back at her.

"Oh," said, Marsh, who was apparently quick to catch on. "So, short for 'Winifred' then?"

---

"Winifred O'Neill," Carter said thoughtfully. "You have to admit, sir, it has a certain ring to it."

"The same kind of ring as 'Schrödinger Carter'?"

Carter gave him the stinkeye. Jack grinned unashamedly back at her. Fred opened her little blue peepers and mewed insistently. Both officers looked down at her with raised eyebrows.

"What is it?" asked Jack.

Fred mewed again.

"I don't get it," said Jack.

"Maybe you should use flash cards," Carter told the kitten. "He's pretty good with those."

This time Jack gave her the stinkeye.

"Or so I've heard," the major finished, smiling.

Fred, apparently unimpressed with the direction of the conversation, bit Jack's thumb. While Jack stood around swearing and shaking his hand, Carter held the squirming kit and announced, "I think she might be hungry, sir."

"Ya think!"

---

On the whole, Jack was beginning to see why he was a dog person. Cats weren't just curious, they were conundrums. Fred, having been provided with a bowl of lukewarm water and another of mincemeat, sat blinking expectantly at Jack from her place on the commissary table.

Jack blinked back at her.

"What?" he said.

Carter, who was halfway through a bowl of quivering blue jello at this point, gestured to the kitten and said with a sage nod of her head, "Flash cards."

To Jack she said, "You need to feed it to her, sir."

Jack stared at her. "What?" he repeated.

Carter smiled. "You seem to be saying that a lot lately. What I mean is that she's still only little, sir. Her mom would have been weaning her off milk, which is good, but still would have been hunting for her and her littermates. She would've chewed the meat up for them…sir."

"You mean I have to…"

She giggled at his horrified expression but shook her head. "Oh no, sir, not at all, but she won't eat out of a bowl; she doesn't know how. You just need to hand feed her until she gets the hang of it is all."

So there was Jack, sitting shoulder to shoulder with his 2IC while the two of them fed his kitten bits of cold mincemeat and told bad cat jokes. Fred ended up asleep on her back, all four white paws in the air, her belly almost spherical. Jack scooped her up, mentally fortified himself and said, "Back to the grind."

Carter grinned. "Reports, Colonel?"

Jack grimaced. "Reports."

"General Hammond threaten to confiscate your Game Boy, sir?"

"And my yo-yo, and my _spare_ yo-yo! That man has a heart of stone. Who takes away a guy's spare yo-yo?" He gave Carter a hopeful look. "Want to help?"

Carter threw him a 'do I look that stupid to you?' look. Jack heaved a long-suffering sigh.

"Off I go then. To my doom."

"At the hands of brain-melting paperwork no less."

"Woe. Woe is me."

Carter laughed. Jack's heart soared, just a little. It was his only excuse to what he said next.

When she said, "See you for the next feeding of the tiny beast?" Jack, already halfway out the door, called back, "It's a date."

He got as far as level sixteen before the urge to facepalm became too much and his hand met his forehead.

"D'oh."

* * *

**AN2:** Snork. I heart Jack. Who hearts Jack too?


	3. In Which Daniel Becomes Enlightened

**AN****:** I took ages, I know, but these chapters seem to a slow boil sort of thing. It's a Crockpot fic!

---

**Fred3**

In which Daniel is informed of something he was previously (and dorkily) unaware of, is also teased by Jack, and remains suffering from allergies.

---

"_No amount of time can erase the memory of a good cat, and no amount of masking tape can ever totally remove his fur from your couch."_

– _Leo Dworken –_

---

Daniel Jackson was a knowledgeable sort of person (double doctorates will do that to you). However, even his kind of knowledge was sometimes stretched when it came to two certain people. How the evident attraction between two of his best friends managed to by pass him for so long was a mystery to him.

Although evidently not to Teal'c.

"_Seriously_?" he said as the two of them drove to Jack's for Team Night.

"You have never noticed this before, DanielJackson?"

"Um, _no_. Since when?"

"I believe they both became aware of the feelings between them some months after the Edoran incident."

"So…what, around _May_? Last _year_?"

"Yes."

"And they've sat on it since then?"

"O'Neill and MajorCarter are both noble warriors, DanielJackson. They respect each other a great deal as well as the rules and regulations of the military they both serve."

Of course. The frat regs.

"Even though they're crappy regulations?"

A slight smile turned up the corners of Teal's mouth.

"Indeed."

---

-_Three days later_-

---

There was a thick, wet snort from Jack's doorway, followed by a rip-roaring sneeze.

"Hi Danny," Jack said without looking up from his report.

"Hi," and close on the heels of that, the sound of a tissue being tortured. With snot.

Jack cringed and peered cautiously at the archaeologist. "Still, with the allergies?"

Daniel hacked. "Yup." Only it came out, "gup."

"And you're sure it's not, y'know, Fred?"

Jack had now been a cat-owner for five days. For those five days Fred had accompanied him to work and spent much of her time there either hanging out with Jack in his office while he slogged over reports, or being minded by Doctor Marsh in the veterinary labs, or by Carter in her personal lab or by Teal'c while Teal'c did whatever it was that Teal'c did with his time apart from training, meditating or soaking up Earth culture. She had even spent one memorable day with General Hammond.

Never again.

The General was reputedly still trying to get the smell of regurgitated fish out of his inbox.

Jack cast a furtive look over his shoulder at the grey bundle napping in a nest of discarded pillow cases on the bottom shelf of his bookcase. Such a tiny thing to cause such disaster…

Daniel sneezed again.

Jack threw his hands up. "Okay, seriously! Are you sure it's not my cat?"

Daniel looked thoughtful. "I could be allergic to you," he ventured.

Jack gave him a flat look.

"Or not…" The linguist shrugged. "It's the season," he muttered, "spring, flowers, pollen…"

"…starry eyed lovers," Jack added.

Daniel eyed him oddly over his wad of tissues.

"How's Ashleigh?"

This time it was Daniel who threw his hands up. Jack dodged a flying snot-rag.

"For god sakes, Jack! She's just a friend!"

He rather ruined the statement by blushing the colour of raspberry sorbet. Jack thought of the new ice cream place three blocks over and vaguely wondered what Carter was doing this Saturday.

_Focus._

Jack put a politely enquiring look on his face. "And by friend you mean someone you see most days at lunch…"

"Sure."

"Someone you enjoy spending time with…"

"Yeah."

"Someone you see outside of work hours…"

"Occasionally."

"Someone you've been to dinner with…"

"Um, yes?"

"Someone you've contemplated naked…"

"A little…wait – _what_ – NO!"

Jack cackled.

"To quote Cassie Fraiser, 'Oh _snap_, Daniel!'"

Before the linguist could respond (probably violently) there was a soft grumble from Jack's bookshelf and Fred lifted her downy head to look at him.

"Hey little lady."

He lifted her onto the desk, put her on her back and tried to rub her belly. Like all kittens she was rambunctious after her recent nap, and soon he was having a one-handed play fight with her. She chewed his fingers and kicked his palm with her bunched hind legs and practiced her growls, fuzzy tail lashing furiously back and forth and sending loose paper clips flying in every direction.

Argument forgotten, Daniel settled in the chair opposite, rested his chin on his folded arms and watched Fred kick loose from Jack's hand and begin exploring the topography of his desk. She chew on the edge of files, bounded after a pen Jack dragged across his blotter pad for her, and finally went over to Daniel, patting his nose in an effort to get him to play.

He grinned and blew in her face, sending her whiskers fluttering and making her pull faces. She pranced back, evidently delighted, charged him and swatted at his hair.

Daniel capitulated by sitting up and rubbing her ears.

"So," said the esteemed double doctorate, with the air of someone dropping a bombshell to see what will happen, "if Ashleigh is just my 'friend'…what does that make Sam to you?"

The air froze in the office. Jack felt it leave his lungs in and air-con cool rush.

"Daniel," he said, very softly, "this is not a conversation we can have."

Daniel sighed, still rubbing Fred's ears. She put one little white foot on his knuckles and purred. "I know. Not here anyway. It's too dangerous."

Career-wise anyway.

Jack nodded. "For both of us."

They both knew he wasn't referring to Fred.

They settled into a comfortable silence, simply watching Fred explore and get into various manageable disasters.

Cats, Jack decided, were like small children and archaeologists; _timewasters_. You could watch them tumble about and get into trouble for _hours_ and not be bored. Speaking of archaeologists…

How, exactly, had Danny figured him out? Daniel, as a rule, was sensitive to every other emotional conflict except _that_ one – despite being the guy that stumbled into the alternate reality that had probably sparked the whole debacle in their timeline.

Not that he'd let on, but after that he'd certainly started noticing her more. She was hard to miss in any case, but this was different. She was under his skin now, in his blood, aching in his bones. Some days he wasn't sure it was a good ache, but he's miss it if it was gone…

Daniel made a sound that could roughly be described as a snerk.

Fred hissed and leapt into Jack's lap before frantically making a break for his shoulder, claws extended the whole way up.

Jack sighed.

He reached up and began disentangling the kit from his BDU's.

"So," he said, "lunch?"

---

The adaptive capacity of the SGC staff was phenomenal.

Within five days, gossip had spread sufficiently that the entire base was aware of their 2IC's new status as a cat-owner and were taking necessary measures to ensure it continued.

Jack was unsure why, but Daniel's pet (ha-ha, geddit?) theory was that they were hoping to soften him up.

Jack was nonplussed.

"…do I need softening up?"

"I shouldn't think so, Sir," said Carter, appearing straight out of nowhere and causing Jack's stomach to happily double-knot. On his shoulder, Fred began purring.

It occurred to him, rather abruptly, that it was a little odd for the 2IC of a classified military base to have a small cat on his shoulder (or in his pocket for that matter).

Moments later, it also occurred to him that this was the SGC. Odd things happened here, and thusly, people who were perhaps a little odd themselves were required to deal with said odd things. In this case, the old adage could be altered to 'familiarity breeds competence'.

Or comprehension.

Or something.

In any case, it seemed those who were a little eccentric in someway survived longer here and got along better with the old hands…

---

The old hands, of course, had ulterior motives that not even Jack was privy too. Had he been, the explosion would have levelled the mountain, or at least taken most of the top off.

Then again, perhaps he simply would have blushed and gruffly gone off to fish in his fish-free pond.

The point being, that as he sat down in the commissary, shoulder to shoulder with a smiling Sam Carter, the little grey cat swaying on his shoulder, certain nosy people chortled and smiled knowingly at each other. Some of the dorkier ones low-fived under the table.

The nosiest of all nearly swooned when Jack turned to his 2IC and said, "So, Carter, whatcha doin' this Saturday?"

Seconds later:

"Danny, you okay?"

---

**AN2:** Giving unsuspecting characters small felines is fun. Especially if they're not really cat people to begin with. I'm thinking, once I'm (eventually) finished with this fic, that I should do it to some other poor schmuck. How does everyone feel about Dean Winchester?


End file.
